Shit! Not only that, but he was late for work.
Steve drove a cab. This was another carryover from his acting days, just like his long hair and his answering service. Out-of-work actors waited tables or drove cabs. Steve had never had the temperament to wait tables, so as an out-of-work actor he’d driven a cab. And then, as an out-of-work lawyer, he’d driven a cab.
And he was due to drive one now.
With a sigh, Steve shoved the document back in the folder, got up and went back to the phone. He fished in his pocket, dug out another quarter and dropped it in. It rang three times, then a voice answered.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Marty. It’s Steve. Listen, can you drive for me tonight?”
“Sorry, pal. I got a date.”
“Listen, Marty, it’s important.”
Marty chuckled. “So’s the date.”
The phone clicked dead.
Steve sighed and hung up the receiver. He picked it up again, dug out another quarter and dialed.
“Hello?” growled the voice of the dispatcher.
“Hello, Charlie. It’s Steve. Listen. I can’t drive tonight.”
“Why not?”
“I’m sick.”
“So get a replacement.”
“I tried. No one’s free.”
“Then you gotta drive.”
“I’m sick.”
“Yeah. I’m sick too. Look. Show up or get a replacement. You don’t show up, you’re fired.”
The phone clicked dead.
Steve hung up the phone. Shit What was it he had? Thirty-six bucks? The cabbie job was his lifeline, the thing standing between him and eventual eviction. If there were any chance, any faint hope of getting a retainer… but he’d read the trust, and he knew enough law to know what it meant.
He couldn’t afford to lose his job.
Which is why Steve Winslow, attorney for Sheila Benton in a premeditated-murder case, spent the first night of his employment driving a cab.
17
Mark Taylor was seated at his desk talking on the phone when Steve Winslow walked in. It was three in the morning, and Taylor looked it-stubble on his cheeks, and circles under his eyes. Steve, who had slept late and shaved late, looked better, if you discounted his clothes.
The stubble on Taylor’s cheeks was red, and matched the curly red hair that framed his chubby face. Taylor was a man who had spent his twenties resisting the onslaught of fat, and now in his thirties had given up. Half a sandwich from the all-night deli lay unwrapped on his desk. Next to it was the inevitable cup of coffee, which, after years of being black was now laced with cream and sugar.
Mark Taylor had been Steve’s roommate their freshman year at Yale. Steve had gone on to major in drama. Mark had majored in economics, but that had been out of the necessity of majoring in something. To Taylor, Yale had meant just one thing: football. At six foot, two hundred twenty pounds, all muscle, Taylor had been an exceptional linebacker with not unrealistic professional aspirations. A knee injury that wouldn’t heal right his senior year shattered the dream. He emerged from Yale with a “gentleman’s C” in a subject that held little interest for him, and with limited prospects.
His salvation had been his beef, which landed him a job with a Manhattan detective agency run by the father of one of his former teammates. Taylor liked it fine, picked it up fast and within five years was running his own agency.
When Steve, who’d kept in touch, had gone to work for Wilson and Doyle, he’d promised to try to throw some work Taylor’s way. Only Steve hadn’t lasted long enough to do it.
“Hi, Steve,” Taylor said. “Just a second.” He spoke into the phone. “Okay. Good work. Call me back as soon as you know.” He hung up the phone. “Steve. How you doing?”
“Hi, Mark. Any luck?”
“Yeah. The police just identified the body.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“Traced the laundry mark.”
“Good for them. Who is he?”
“Don’t know yet. I’ve got a pipeline into headquarters, though, and he’ll call me just as soon as he can get the information.”
“Good work.”
Taylor shook his head. “What a case. Sheila Benton, for Christ’s sake.” He took a sip of coffee. “How the hell’d she come to hire you, anyway?”
Steve grinned. “Picked my name out of the phone book.”
“What?”
“That’s right.”
“You shitting me?”
Steve shook his head. He sat in one of the clients’ chairs, stretched out and rubbed his eyes. “When Wilson and Doyle fired me,” he said, “I was up against it. No other firm would touch me, not with their recommendation. I made the rounds for a while, but it was no use. So there I was with a law degree and nowhere to practice. I had no money. I couldn’t rent my own office. I couldn’t afford to advertise. So I did the only thing I could think of. I got an answering service, and listed the phone number in the yellow pages under ‘Lawyers.’”
“You’re kidding.”
Steve shrugged. “It’s a big city. I figured with the law of averages, eventually someone would call me. It took a year.”
Taylor nodded, chuckled, shook his head. He was amused, but he also seemed to be preoccupied with something, and Steve had a pretty good idea what it was.
Taylor picked up the half a sandwich, took a bite, chewed it and cocked his head at Winslow.
“So the girl hired you?” Taylor said.
“Yeah.”
“Not the uncle?”
“No. The girl called me.”
Taylor nodded. Swallowed. Pursed his lips. “I’ve dug up some information on Sheila Benton. Not much, but some. And as I understand it, her money is all tied up in trust.”
“That’s right. Her uncle is the trustee.”
“That’s what I heard. So she couldn’t very well hire you without her uncle’s consent.”
“She’s over twenty-one. She can hire anyone she wants.”
“True. But she can’t pay them. Unless her uncle authorized it.”
“What’s your point, Mark?”
“Well, as I understand it, a lawyer from Marston, Marston, and Cramden showed up at the D.A.’s office inquiring into the case.”
“Oh. Sure. That’s Maxwell Baxter’s attorney. Probably trying to keep a lid on publicity.”
Taylor seemed uncomfortable. “Could be. The way I heard it, the lawyer claimed to be representing the girl.”
Steve smiled. “Yes. He would. Maxwell Baxter is a little impulsive. Wants to do everything himself. Don’t worry. I straightened him out.”
Mark Taylor was surprised. “You spoke to him?”
